How many acronyms do you use during the average working day? If you’re like most Americans, the answer is probably too many to count. We’re drawn to all sorts of abbreviations, because they save time and keys, or because they make us feel like we’re in the know.
There’s a problem with this approach, especially if you’re a CEO or other business leader. The people you talk to or email with may not know what these acronyms mean. You might be surprised at how many acronyms seem to confuse people. Years ago, I left a note for my landlady to give her some information I thought she should know. I started the note, “FYI…” and he later told me that he had puzzled over those three letters for a long time before realizing that they were supposed to mean “for your information.”
She is not alone. “FYI” is the fourth most searched acronym, according to research by word game site WordFinder. Surprisingly, “CEO” is the second most searched position.
While I think you can safely use the term “CEO” and expect that anyone listening, especially anyone who works for you, will understand what you mean, there may be other acronyms in your site’s vocabulary. work that your co-workers or employees are. frantically searching on Google. Or worse, they might not understand what you mean.
Take a look WordFinder’s complete list of the most searched acronyms (along with lots of other slang info). Here are a few that seem most likely to cause confusion.
1. KPIs
KPI, for “key performance indicator,” is the number one most searched acronym, according to WordFinder. KPI refers to the metrics that help you determine whether or not you are achieving your desired results. For example, if you own a restaurant and introduce a new entree, you can measure how many people order it in the first month it’s on the menu. But a better KPI might be the number of repeat customers who order it a second or third time, which indicates that they like it and will likely continue to eat it.
2. ROI
ROI, or “return on investment” is another way of asking the question: is this initiative a success or not? For example, if you launch a large marketing campaign and sales increase by 15 percent, that may seem like a success. But if the campaign cost you $5 million and the increase in sales was only an additional $1 million, that’s a bad ROI and therefore probably a bad investment.
3. EBITDA
EBITDA stands for “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization”. It is an alternative way of measuring a company’s profitability compared to the more traditional (and less controversial) measure of net income.
Interest (not taxes, depreciation, or amortization) is usually the problem. A company that has been saddled with a mountain of debt due to, say, being acquired, may struggle to show profitability even if the underlying business model is sound. Using EBITDA as a measure can tell investors and others whether the company could be profitable if it ever gets out of all its debt.
To use another confusing acronym, EBITDA is not an acceptable measure under GAAP – generally accepted accounting principles.
4. SaaS
SaaS (usually pronounced “sass”) stands for “software as a service,” which is an unnecessarily complex way of saying that the software resides on someone else’s servers instead of on your computer. Gmail, for example, is a common example of a SaaS product. A possibly clearer way of saying the same thing is “cloud-based software”.
5. SEO
You may be familiar with the term SEO for “search engine optimization,” but not everyone is. It refers to the whole science of trying to get your website to rank higher in Google and other search engines. This can be achieved by changing the wording of your site, but also the update frequency, metadata and many other factors. No wonder this has become an entire industry.
6. EOD
I admit I was confused the first time I came across EOD, which stands for “end of day”. As in, “I need this report by the end of the day, or you’re going to be in big trouble!”
While we’re at it, here are a couple of other potentially confusing end-related acronyms: EOL, or “end of life,” which sounds very ominous, but simply refers to a product or service that will soon go off the market. And EOM, for “end of message”. EOM usually appears in the subject line of an email and means that there is no other information in the body of the email. Usually, someone is passing along a quick piece of information and wants to save you the hassle of opening the email. For example: “Yes, I can meet at 2pm on Thursday EOM”. In other words, “That’s all I have to say.”
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
[ad_2]
Source link
